Time-saving and reduced construction costs

Category: Bauszene

Politics and housing industry in Germany want to push serial and modular construction. Also, a McKinsey study sees this as an opportunity to increase productivity. Natureplus is developing award guidelines for construction components.

Abstract of McKinsey presentation

To meet housing shortages in the big cities, in Germany will be built more apartments in serial and modular construction. To achieve this, the Federal Ministry of Environment and of Building Affairs and the top association of the housing industry GdW, together with the Federal Chamber of Architects and the construction industry, launched on 26 June a Europe-wide tender procedure. The aim was to conclude a framework agreement on the construction of multi-story residential buildings with several consortiums from planning and execution. In particular, this provides the possibility to public housing companies to directly realize offers locally adjusted from the framework agreement without any further process. The lead times for construction projects are thus to be significantly shortened.

Contribution to affordable housing

"Serial building can contribute to affordable housing and should therefore be pushed forward," says Federal Building Minister Barbara Hendricks (SPD). "Industrial construction has not yet been carried out too far, because the conditions for an economic order size are often not fulfilled. We want standardized construction to make the shell construction and building components quick and inexpensive and that the building culture is not lost. We don’t want to lose quality; therefore cities don’t need to look uniform.”

Axel Gedaschko, President of the GdW Federal Association of German Housing and Real Estate Companies, affirms: "We must make it possible that newly build rented apartments become affordable again for people with average income, also without subsidies. The innovative construction concepts shall combine four things: saving of time during construction, reduced construction costs, high architectural and urban quality as well as consideration of architectural concerns."

The McKinsey study focuses on the increase of productivity

At the EU conference "Let's build changes", Jan Mischke from the McKinsey Global Institute presented a study from his company on the productivity of the construction industry: the building sector worldwide accounted for 13% of the world's gross national product or about 10,000 billion dollars, yet the construction industry has only grown by just under 20% in the past 20 years, while it has increased by 65% on average in all business sectors and even doubled in industry.

With an increase in productivity by 50% (in accordance with the general trend), investment costs could drop by 13%, wages would rise by 10% and profitability by 45%. According to a survey, the main obstacles to the development of the productivity of the construction sector are the lack of planning and execution, as well as the growing complexity of construction projects. Therefore, the serial and industrial construction style could represent the key factor for an increase in productivity.

natureplus optimizes sustainability

In line with the theme, natureplus is currently working on the development of a guideline for prefabricated construction elements, initially only for timber construction. This is about optimizing the ecological influences and increasing the sustainability through the serial construction.

The control of the diversity of the requirements for such a complex component is certainly a great challenge for natureplus. However, with a long-term partner from the construction industry, which is self a pioneer in ecological construction, we are well positioned to meet our high requirements. At the end of the year 2017, the first series of construction elements will bear the natureplus certification mark.